Post your pictures of any of my old stuff you guys still have. I love seeing pictures of all the stuff I forgot I built from back in the old days and the Retro days, which are longer than the old days. LOL.

If I inspired you to build something post it, too. I'd love to see it.

Cheater and MSwiss like this

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only." - Dylan

Our friend and master painter Joe "Noose" Neumeister has a super-cool Tony P plate car that he still runs today. I believe it was made in 1978 and Noose would like it freshened up a bit. Here is the car with photos and comments courtesy of Noose:

The chassis restoration:

It's out of the tumbler. Before I do the overnight WD40 soak I took some pictures:

Here are some before and after pictures:

The dark areas are pitting that is not going to come out unless you do serious metal removal.

And the next oldest. My first pro race was the big Cobra Mura event at Buzzarama in 1969? Was fifth qualifier, got cut out of a sit out by the last qualifier Tom Conlon, won the semi, and was sixth in the main.

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only." - Dylan

Thank you, Tony. But, fellow Slotblogers, take a look at Tony's workmanship on this beauty. And remember he built his chassis in about one hundredth the time it takes me. He has "the .005" eyeball". Meaning he can just put a piece to be soldered down on the chassis and it's eyeball aligned virtually perfectly.

Tony P has been kind enough to send me a couple of his chassis to replicate and restore. The first one I going to tackle is one of his famous Isos. For some background on the Eastern Iso we have an article written by Tony for the Dec. 1972 issue of Miniature Auto Racing newsletter. I've included the first page here and the entire article will be available soon in a high resolution format on Steve Okeefe's web site:The Independent Scratch Builder

Here is the chassis untouched for 32 years:

Mike Steube was kind enough to share with me his method of restoring old chassis using a tumbler. I followed his advice and ordered this puppy and the polishing media:

Unfortunately the polishing media is backordered... ARG! When it arrives I'll detail the process and results on some of my old collectable chassis on Steve's web site. For now the show must go on so I tackled the project the old fashioned way... elbow grease. I used Comet non-scratching cleanser, Tarnex, a wire wheel in a Dremel tool on the steel, and a little paste metal polish. I have not sanded any of the pitted steel (which appears as a darker area on the wire) or corroded brass. I just cleaned off the surface crud:

If you look closely at the image below you may notice some engraving on the drop arm:

So we have a 1972 MAR article and a 1975 Iso race-winning chassis. I thought Isos went by the way side after the advent of the 1973 PdL Diamond design? Tony also had a version of that design he called Da Spyder. Here's my friend Rodney's prized all-original Da Spyder:

Very soon after this chassis, Tony and the other Eastern builders went to the "L" arm front axles instead of the "Diamond" style. But why is an Iso winning races three years after it was supposedly rendered obsolete?

I asked Tony this very question and he was kind enough to reply:

"The date on the chassis would be correct. I engraved them as we used them.Elmsford is a 220 Engleman... Isos seemed to run better on that track then spyder style."

That was Ernie Provetti's chassis. He won the Elmsford Arco on the 220 and that chassis just ruled on the 165 Engleman at Clementon which was lengthened by changing the triangle donut into another finger.

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only." - Dylan

I started my Starship project a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... hmmm... well actually it was four forums ago . I built my first chassis with the help of just two pictures kindly provided by Fred Da Flash... thanks, Flash!

It needed some help from Mr. Tumbler. Tumbling can't put metal back into the pits but it can sure get all the crap-o-la off and leave all the fabulous engraving intact:

A closer look at some of the extensive engraving:

Here's my recreation. It's one of my most prized possessions:

The pans should be jewelry. Mine were coarse sanded to debur them. Time for some serious "fix'n":

YIKES. Look at the brass dust it took to get rid of the sanding mess . It was worth it me thinks. Look at the reflections from the restored pan:

This effort does nothing to make the car faster, but it also does nothing to slow it down . From this point on I kind of got carried away and just finished the chassis. It went into the tumbler for four hours and it looks, well, WOW to me:

Next I'll put the same "Eddie 20" motor in it that I've been telling you about add nauseaum. A vintage Mura C-can setup with modern Pro Slot Drag 20 arm, magnets, brushes and springs... OH MY! It can't possibly work, except it does .

Here is Tony's latest and last Starship he graciously gave to me a few years ago:

This thread reminded me that there was some posting about a modern TonyP Starship showing up at a local raceway. Tony was surprised by this as he only made one and gave it to me. I always meant to take a picture that shows I still have the car but it slipped my mind (what mind I have left ) until now:

The original steel version was only fair. I think it was way too stiff. The Retro ones I built work very well and won a couple of races but were chunky. They were retired when some new lighter designs came off the jig.

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only." - Dylan

Don Barber team Camen team driver and super body painter still has his 1975 National winning car. He sent me a picture last night. That one year there were two nationals one in Austin and one later in the year at Elmsford. Don won with this chassis and I won with a duplicate at Elmsford and Don was second.

Memories from 40 years ago... Don Barber's car is from the 1975 Nats held on my 180' Engleman in Converse (San Antonio).

Donnie's car was a missile from the time he first tried it early in the week, once he put a Parma Lola T290 on it, which was "The Body" for the track.

Tony's steel chassis was just plain better than the wire chassis that were more common at that time.

I had also been running steel but decided to go with tried and true wire and brass as did many others... a mistake as the glue was nowhere near as gooey as it had been in 1974 (Jan wasn't there with his "Sledsetter" ), and the lighter steel chassis got more bite on the looser track.

No front wheel springs... The weight transfer to the rear created by the sprung front wheels gave way more bite than was needed with Camen Brown in the big flat turns.

Nowadays we go just as fast around the track with a Group F car, but they sure don't get down the straights as quick as an 18t/24.

Jim Honeycutt

"I don't think I'm ever more 'aware' than I am right after I hit my thumb with a hammer." - Jack Handey [Deep Thoughts]

It was worse for me; I was trying contacts for awhile but it seemed that the fumes seeped into the plastic. Couldn't get my fingers clean enough to chance taking the lenses out sometimes! I often wonder if my current asthma has something to do with that. Of course I was smoking a couple packs a day at the time so who knows?

Yeah, full gloo sucked! (IMO)

We must all do what we must do, for if we do not, then what we must do does not get done. Chung Mee

I went from 1/32 home racing to commercial tracks in Feb 1965. At that point tire traction was already being used. You would rub it into your tires and do a burn out in front of you at the drivers panel. The first person I saw that put glue on the track before the turns was PVA probably at the end of that same year. What started as a drop before each turn became 75 percent of the track glued on a blue King. After the glue disaster of a western states ( the one PDL won) Joel montage and I returned back east and decided we needed a change. We came up with 10" or so glue zones in front of turns as the only place you could glue. As the one running the USRA it was easy to push through and it became the standard until I quit in the 80's.

James Fetherolf likes this

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only." - Dylan